.

and you turn round and tell me …’

      As she saw the look Claire was giving her Hannah backed off, apologising.

      ‘All right, all right … So I know how close you and John were and how much you must still miss him. It just seems such a waste, that’s all. One thing does puzzle me, though; if this guy is Tim’s boss, what on earth is he doing looking for lodgings? Why doesn’t he—?’

      ‘He wants to live in a family home,’ Claire explained patiently, repeating what Irene had told her.

      ‘Apparently he’s used to having a large family around him. According to Irene, he and his brothers and sisters were orphaned when his parents were killed in an accident. He was just eighteen at the time and he stepped in as a surrogate parent, put himself and all of them through college, then took a job locally with the family business to keep the family together.’

      ‘Oh, I see, and I suppose he was too busy taking care of his siblings to have time to marry and have his own family … Mmm … I wonder what he is like? He sounds …’

      ‘Incredibly dull and worthy,’ Claire supplied wryly for her.

      Both of them started to giggle.

      ‘I wasn’t going to say that,’ Hannah protested. ‘Oh, by the way, what’s all this about you and Sally’s two bridesmaids making a pact to stay single?’

      ‘What?’

      Claire gave her a confused look and then realised what she meant.

      ‘Oh, that … It wasn’t so much of a pact, rather an act of feminine solidarity,’ she explained ruefully.

      ‘I felt so sorry for poor Poppy, Hannah. It’s no secret how she feels about Chris. Sally was in two minds about whether or not to ask her to be her bridesmaid, not because she didn’t want her, but because she was worried about the strain it would place her under. But, as she and Poppy agreed, for her not to have done so could have placed Poppy in an even more invidious position.

      ‘And as for Star—well, you know her background; her mother has been divorced several times and is currently having an affair with a boy who’s younger than Star and her father has, at the last count, nine children from four different relationships, none of whom he seems to have any real time for. It’s no wonder that Star is so anti-marriage …’

      ‘So it isn’t true, then, that the three of you took a vow to support one another in withstanding the famous power of the bride’s wedding bouquet?’ Hannah teased her archly.

      Claire stared at her.

      ‘Who told you that?’

      ‘Ah … so it is true … Someone—and I’m afraid I simply cannot reveal my source—happened to be walking past the door and overheard you.

      ‘I don’t know if it’s true, but I have heard rumours that there are plans to run a book on the odds of the three of you being unattached by the time Sally and Chris celebrate their first anniversary.’

      ‘Oh, there are, are there?’ Claire retorted fiercely. ‘Well, for your information … I shall never marry again, Hannah,’ she said, more quietly and seriously. The laughter died from her friend’s eyes as she listened to her. ‘John was a wonderful husband and I loved him dearly.’

      ‘You’ve only been widowed for two years,’ Hannah reminded her gently. ‘One day some man is going to walk into your life, set your heart pounding and make you realize that you’re still very much a woman. Who knows? It could even be this American,’ she teased wickedly.

      ‘Never,’ Claire declared firmly, and she meant it.

      She had her own reasons for knowing that there could never be a second marriage or any other kind of intimate relationship for her, but that was something she could not talk about to Hannah, or to anyone else. That was something she had only been able to share with John, and was just one of the reasons why she still missed him so desperately.

      John had known her as no one else, man or woman, had or ever could, especially no other man—most especially another man.

      As he boarded his flight for Heathrow Brad Stevenson was frowning. He hadn’t wanted to take up this appointment in Britain; in fact he had done every damn thing he could to try to get out of it, and in the end it had taken the combined appeal of the president of the company himself and the retired chairman to persuade him to change his mind.

      As he had faced his two uncles across the boardroom table he had protested that he was quite happy where he was, that the last thing he wanted was to be sent across the Atlantic to sort out the problems they were having with the British-based offshoot of their air-conditioning company, which they had insisted on buying into, against his advice.

      ‘OK,’ he had said at the time, ‘so right now Britain is sweltering in a heatwave and everyone wants air-conditioning. Next summer could be a different story and you’ll be left with a warehouse full of unwanted conditioners and a long, long haul until the next hot spot.’

      It had taken all his powers of persuasion then to get certain British organisations to agree to fit the air-conditioning systems in their business premises, and by doing so he had managed to avert the financial disaster with their British distribution outlet which he had predicted, but enough was enough. The thought of spending God alone knew how much time rescuing the ailing outlet to get it running efficiently and profitably was enough to make him grind his teeth in angry frustration.

      How the hell had those two old guys guessed that he had intended to take the easy way out and oh, so slowly ease himself out of the business and out of the task of eventually having to step into their shoes, which he could see looming ominously ahead of him?

      He was thirty-eight years old and there were things that he wanted to do, things he needed to do, that did not involve running a transatlantic company.

      There was that boat out on the lake that he still had only half built, for instance; that voyage he had been promising himself that he would make ever since his high-school days when he had earnestly traced the voyage of Christopher Columbus through the Indies and the rich, Spanish-owned lands of South America.

      Yes, there were things he wanted to do, a life he wanted to live, now that he was finally able to do so—now that the last of his siblings had finally left home and got settled.

      ‘You watch; you’ll be the next,’ Sheri, the second youngest of the family, had teased him. ‘Now that you’ve not got all of us at home to fuss over you’ll be looking around for a wife … raising a family with her, starting the whole thing over again …’

      ‘Never,’ he had said firmly. ‘I’ve done all the child-raising I plan to do with you five.’

      Sheri had given him a serious look. ‘Has it really been so bad?’ she had asked him quietly, and then, answering her own question, had said softly, ‘Yeah, I guess at times it must have been. Not from our point of view but from yours. We’ve given you a hard time over the years but you’ve always stood by all of us, supported us … loved us … It hasn’t really put you off finding someone of your own, though, has it, Brad? Having your own kids?

      ‘I mean, look at all of us … All of us married and all of us with kids except for Doug, and he’s only just got married. My bet is, though, that he and Lucille won’t want to wait very long. You’ve been so good to all of us; I hate to think—’

      ‘Then don’t,’ Brad had advised her firmly, and after one look at him Sheri had acknowledged that there were times when, for all his great love for them, it was best not to push her eldest brother too far.

      She didn’t care to think what would have happened to them if Brad hadn’t been there to take charge when Mom and Dad had been killed. There were six years between him and Amy, the next eldest, who had been twelve then, but no more than a year to eighteen months between Amy and the rest of them, going right down to Doug, who had been only just five. The accident had happened twenty years ago.

      Brad